Perfect Love of God is the Consummation of Man

God’s supreme work of a man’s consummation consists in perfect love of what is above him, perfect, I mean, first in the mode of this life, and finally in the mode of his homeland. For, according to the things said above, man was created through grace, first toward ordered love of what is beneath him, then toward ordered love of what he himself is, and thirdly toward ordered love of what is next to him. He is to have practiced these three so that it is easy for him to act on whatever each of these three loves suggests. Then, after he is established in this way, the grace of God adds the supreme work, when to all these previous achievements he adds the exercise of ordered love of what is above him toward consummation, first forming him according to the grace of merit, then consummating him according to the grace of reward. This is the consummated state of the human spirit made according to the image and likeness of God. The human soul could in no way reach a state of such dignity, unless established according to the previous order, raised to this dignity little by little as though from earth to heaven it flew by the wings of love like a heavenly animal. (Godfrey of St. Victor, Microcosm)